In the process of working on my presentation over the past few days, it’s become apparent that I have a lot of whale photos. Seriously.

The organisers have allotted me an hour, so I’ve had to whittle and cull, select and edit…until I finally came to the realisation that I really need to focus this particular presentation on sperm whales.

In a perfect world with unlimited time, I’d like to share lots of photos and stories about encounters with humpbacks, Bryde’s, minkes, greys and blues as well as sperm whales, but 60 minutes goes by pretty quickly.

Given Nantucket’s unique place in the history of sperm-whale whaling, it makes sense to structure my talk around the enigmatic and misunderstood Physeter macrocephalus. (To prepare for this talk, I finished Moby Dick...29 years after I first opened the book...and also read In the Heart of the Sea.)

I’ll be showing lots of photos plus a diagram or two, and playing some video + audio clips as well…essentially performing a massive multi-sensory data-dump to convey more than any normal person probably ever wanted to hear about sperm whales. Woohoo!

Humpback whale mother and calf, a photo I won’t be showing at my talk

Incidentally, I just realised that this will be the first time since 1987 that I will be in the US for the 4th of July.

I’m definitely looking forward to chilling out in Nantucket, seeing old friends, meeting new ones, throwing back a cold drink or two, and watching some fireworks.